Downtime is Not What it Seems
by dwparsnip
Summary: A response to Shadows-of-Realm and theicemenace's Downtime challenge.
1. Chapter 1

MGM owns SGA. I do not.

Written for Shadows-of-Realm and theicemenace's Downtime challenge.

300 on the nose.

* * *

Downtime had never come easy for Rodney. His mind was always working overtime, always thinking about what to do, how to do it and what to do next. Even as a child he was kept up at night as his mind raced out of control.

So downtime was something different for him, when it came around. It was working eight hours instead of twelve, or reading a paper that wasn't drivel instead of triple checking the results of routine experiments.

In Pegasus, of course, downtime had come to mean he wasn't being depended on to save the day, or wasn't running for his life or wasn't trying to solve a dozen ridiculously complex problems at once.

"That feels so nice," he mumbled to his companion. He slowly opened one eye and saw Jennifer at the other end of the tub, lazily running her right foot up and down the outside of his left thigh. She smiled and he closed his eye again.

They were doing what he considered the ultimate downtime for them both- sharing a nice, warm bubble bath.

He felt the water swish around the tub, and then sighed when Jennifer's hands found his ankles and began caressing up his legs.

'Sheppard to McKay.'

He ignored the call.

'McKay come in.'

Jennifer's hands slid past his knees and…

'Sheppard to McKay.'

He reached for his comm. and barked into it, "Leave me alone, Sheppard!"

He tossed it aside and waited for Jennifer to continue. But she didn't.

His eyes flew open and water splashed out onto the floor as he quickly sat up in his tub. It took only second for him to realize it had been a dream- a glorious dream- but a dream nonetheless.

He eased himself back into the tub and thought, _I hate downtime. _


	2. Chapter 2

300 words.

MGM owns SGA. Wish I did.

* * *

Rodney closed the access hatch and powered down his tablet. The variance in the power flow going to the starboard drive pod of the Jumper turned out to be minor, but he'd learned the hard way to always check.

He leaned down and placed the tablet on the bench, then turned toward the rear hatch as he straightened up, and found a pissed off looking Sheppard standing at the bottom of the ramp.

"You're supposed to be taking some downtime, Rodney," drawled Sheppard, his arms crossed and scowl firmly affixed upon his face.

"I know," replied Rodney defensively. "I was…"

"Then stop running around fixing things," interrupted Sheppard. "It's like this with you every time you're supposed to take some time off."

Rodney rolled his eyes and jerked his thumb towards the cockpit of the Jumper. "Well I was…"

"Damn it, Rodney," Sheppard exclaimed with an exasperated wave of his arms. "If you don't take some time off, you're going to burn yourself out."

"Well if you …"

"And what about Jennifer?" John asked with a raised brow.

Rodney's face hardened instantly. "What about her?" he asked warily.

"Rodney," said Sheppard patiently, "that beautiful, intelligent woman is in this city somewhere, probably wondering why you'd rather be fooling around with a Jumper instead of her. Go find her and have some fun."

Sheppard turned and walked out of Rodney's view though he continued berating him, his voice getting softer as he moved away until Rodney could no longer hear him.

"What's with him today?" asked someone from up front.

Rodney turned towards the cockpit and found Jennifer looking at him quizzically from the copilot's seat. He shrugged and made his way to the pilot's seat. "Don't know, don't care. Now," he said as he sat down, "ready for our picnic?"


	3. Chapter 3

MGM owns SGA. 300 words.

* * *

Jennifer peered over Sandy's shoulder and watched her nurse apply an antibiotic cream to the burn on Radek's hand. It was a minor procedure and she really had no business being so mother hen like about it.

A sharp hiss of pain had her abandoning her observation of Sandy's ointment applying skills and rushing two beds down to where Dr. Cole was examining the right arm of a Marine.

Jennifer watched as Cole carefully bent the arm at the elbow, then felt along the joint with her fingers.

_Do a scan!_ she silently ordered.

"I don't think there's any damage, Corporal," said Cole thoughtfully.

Jennifer opened her mouth to speak, but Cole caught her eye and said, "But I think we'll do a scan to make sure. Right, Dr. Keller?"

Jennifer felt her cheeks go red and shrugged. She hoped it came off as nonchalant, but suspected it didn't when Cole smiled a wide smile.

Jennifer was just getting that sinking feeling when someone took her by the arm and began dragging her out of the Infirmary.

It wasn't until they'd gotten outside that Rodney released her arm and said, "What are you doing?"

Jennifer rubbed her arm and glared at him. "Shouldn't that be my question?"

Rodney glared back and held up a finger. "One, it's your day off. You should be relaxing somewhere reading a book or doing something, I don't know…"

"Relaxing?" she supplied.

"Yes," he agreed. He held up another finger. "Two, your people know what they're doing. You're only making them mad at you by watching every little thing they do."

Jennifer sighed. She really hated when he was right about this stuff. She smiled at him and said, "Those are good points."

Rodney shrugged. "They should be. It's what you told me last week."


	4. Chapter 4

So I've been going through my HDD trying to figure out what some of these Word docs are. Figure I'd finish-polish-post some of these. Why not right?

* * *

Jennifer just finished tying her hair up into a ponytail as she strode over the threshold of the Infirmary. With no teams currently off world and no missions on the schedule it promised to be a quiet night shift, which she wouldn't complain about at all.

"Good evening, Doctor."

Jennifer stopped and automatically smiled at the good natured tone of voice addressing her. She turned and found her trusted head nurse Sandy sitting at the duty station, a Harlequin romance in her right hand and an already damp tissue in her left.

"Slow night?" asked Jennifer with a knowing grin.

"It has been," replied the nurse with a smile that looked suspiciously like it was trying to hide a yawn. "But you know how fast that can change around here."

Jennifer nodded but her attention had been drawn to the far end of the Infirmary where Dr. Cole was talking to Colonel Sheppard. She cast a curious glance to Sandy, who gave Jennifer a smirk and buried her nose in her book.

Jennifer smiled and headed to her office. She powered up the laptop on her desk and waited for the night's schedule to appear. When it did, she sighed.

Woolsey.

He'd turned out to be a better leader than almost everyone thought he would, but he was fanatical about his reports and paperwork. A blinking alert in the bottom right hand corner of the screen told her she had a message waiting.

_I bet it's Woolsey reminding me that the weekly inventory report is due._ Sure enough, that was exactly what it was.

She searched her desk for the flash drive she'd been using for the report, but after five unsuccessful minutes she gave up and walked towards the door. As she stepped through she asked, "Sandy, do you know where…"

"The weekly inventory report is?" finished Sandy, holding up the missing flash drive though her attention was still focused on her book.

Jennifer smiled and took the device from Sandy's hand. When the nurse finally looked up she gave Jennifer a sly grin. "Did I mention it was really quiet here tonight?"

"Yes," said Jennifer with a short laugh, "yes you did."

Sandy turned the page of her book and started reading again. "Better hustle with that before Mr. Woolsey gets on the citywide PA and asks for it."

Jennifer gave Sandy an affectionate smile. "Thanks, Sandy."

"Don't mention it," replied the nurse.

"Back in a few minutes," said Jennifer as she turned to leave.

Sandy's laughter followed her into the hall, both women keenly aware that the last time Jennifer had said those words a slight clerical error had her crunching numbers under Woolsey's supervision and wishing for some sort of Wraith attack.

She strode the corridors of Atlantis- the mere thought of which made her smile even after years of calling the city home- going over the inventory checks in her head. It took no time to reach the control room and she headed straight for Woolsey's office after giving Chuck and the other technician on duty- Rivers- a wave.

She knocked on Woolsey's door and entered when he called to her. The report it seemed was flawless –_Bless you, Sandy-_ and Jennifer was out again in record time. As she exited the office the way Chuck was holding his face in his hand told her something wasn't quite right. She veered towards him and understood as soon as she saw a familiar looking set of legs sticking out from underneath Chuck's workstation.

She gave Chuck a quizzical glance to which the tech simply shrugged. She was about to verbally ask what was going on when a very familiar, if slightly muffled voice, demanded, "Try it now."

Chuck reached over and touched a button, and then sighed heavily. "No good, Doctor McKay."

There was a muffled noise of disgust and Jennifer just managed limit her laughter to a soft snort.

"There's a slight problem with one of the city sensors," explained Chuck as he tried the control again. He frowned and gave Jennifer a shrug. "It's nothing too serious."

His meaning was clear to her: there was no reason for Rodney to be doing what he was doing. Besides, it was supposed to be his day off, and there was technically still a few hours of that day left.

"Who are you talking to?" asked Rodney's muted voice.

"Dr. Keller," replied Chuck.

"Right!" exclaimed Rodney after a second in which he went eerily still. "If Jennifer were really there she'd be yelling at me right now for working on my day off."

Jennifer leaned forward and said in her sweetest voice, "Hello, Rodney."

Silence.

For a few moments, she exchanged curious and amused glances with Chuck and Rivers, waiting for Rodney to say something.

He cleared his throat and said, "I suppose it's too much to ask that you can do impressions isn't it, Chuck?"

Chuck couldn't help but laugh. "Yes it is, Doctor."

There was a muffled, hefty sigh before Rodney slowly extricated himself from the machine and stood up to face her.

Jennifer raised her eyebrow at him, demanding an explanation.

"I was bored, and yes I know I'm supposed to be relaxing but I can't relax! I need to do something. Anything! And the things I really wanted to do I couldn't do because the person I wanted to do them with," he motioned towards her with his hand, "is working tonight. So I had to settle for fixing this sensor thing even though I'd much rather be doing something with you!"

Jennifer couldn't help but smile at the love of her life and his valiant attempt at flattery, yet it didn't change a thing. "Nice try, Rodney," she said warmly.

"I'll say," mumbled an awed and impressed Chuck as he suddenly found his console very interesting.

Both Jennifer and Rodney glanced at Chuck but then turned to look back at each other. "Look I can't help it if I have to be doing something." He crossed his arms across his chest and shrugged. "Relaxing is not one of my things."

Jennifer sighed. "Fine." She gave Chuck a wink that somehow went unobserved by Rodney and then reached over to take one of his hands. "But you need to leave Chuck alone." She started to drag Rodney away from Chuck's console and added, "If you want to fix something, you can come to the Infirmary and figure out why I can't upload files from my office and have to do it from the main nurse's station."


End file.
